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The Warsword sighed heavily, resting his head against the back of the armchair before giving Malik, who wasgrinning, a long look. ‘Oh, shut up,’ he muttered, and then reached down to scratch Dax behind the ears.

With her brow furrowed, Thea tiptoed out the door into the corridor beyond and ran straight into Audra.

The librarian took one look at her filthy clothes and said: ‘You'd best not be bleeding on my books.’

After assuring Audra that she had done no such thing, Thea threw caution to the wind and headed for the master bathingchambers. Though she suspected that no amount of time in a tub would erase the filthy feeling from her skin or fill the gaping chasm in her chest.

CHAPTER THIRTY

Thezmarr went into mourning for those lost on the battlefield. Atop the cliffs where not so long ago they had held the mock battle, now six funeral pyres burned for the fallen warriors.

They gathered around in silence, and Thea noted that the eyes of those who’d been there that day were haunted. Throughout the night, the shieldbearers had murmured in their sleep and she didn’t need to be in their dreams to know that reapers stalked there, casting their shadows across minds when they were most vulnerable. Thea had dreamt of them too, and the seer and the fate stone, as though all their destinies were entwined.

Now, as the flames licked the sky, the first snow of winter began to fall.

Thea lifted her face to the clouds, closing her eyes against the icy flakes that kissed her skin and thinking of the shieldbearer they had lost amidst the ruins. She had despised Lachin at first, considering him just another mindless lackey following Seb around. But as the weeks had worn on, he’d changed. He’d become more than that… He’d become an ally. And had theforces of darkness not snatched him from the midrealms so soon, he might have one day become her friend.

The tightness in Thea’s chest did not abate.

Her cohort had lost one of its own. And a good one at that.

With the cold numbing her face and making her nose stream, she stood shoulder to shoulder with Cal and Kipp, saying her silent farewell to Lachin. And when the fires had burned out and they returned to the fortress, they watched as the Guild Master carved Lachin’s name, along with those of five others, into the stone swords in the great hall, acknowledging their sacrifice to the midrealms.

The following days saw a change in Thezmarr and its guild. A looming sense of danger spurred them on through their drills and sparring matches. They had seen what enemies could do with a single swipe of their claws and the fact that one of therheguldreapershad escaped was not lost on them.

With only a handful of weeks until their initiation test and the rancid scent of burnt hair still lingering in her nostrils, Thea pushed herself harder than ever. Despite the winter storms that constantly lashed Thezmarr, she rose before the others every day to perform her own set of weapon and strength drills as well as endurance training, and she retired long after her peers, determined to prepare her mind as thoroughly as her body for whatever came next.

It had been one thing to hear Hawthorne’s words of warning about the scourge, another entirely to see the festering shadows for herself. Everyone was on edge, everyone was waiting.

‘This is not the last we have seen of their black hearts and foul curses,’ Cal murmured as they trekked through the Bloodwoods back to the fortress one afternoon. ‘The midrealms have been darkening for years… And now, every day is worse than before.’

‘But no one talks about it. Not even to us,’ Kipp replied. ‘It’s not a good sign, is it?’

Thea couldn’t shake the feeling that she had been marked in some way. She still flinched at the memory of the warm splatter of blood that had hit her face. She had scrubbed her skin raw multiple times, and yet the stain remained, lingering on the surface.

But she steeled herself. ‘I don’t know what to make of it. All I know is that the Warswords prevailed that day in Delmira. They’ll continue to do so.’

‘You saw Vernich’s leg. Not even the Warswords are invincible,’ Kipp said.

Silence settled between the friends as the fortress came into view.

Thea knew something was different as soon as they passed through the gatehouse. Several gleaming thoroughbred horses were being tended to in the courtyard and half a dozen guards bearing the Harenth sigil were stationed at the entrance.

‘What’s going on?’ Cal murmured beside her.

Unease coiled in Thea’s gut. ‘King Artos is here.’

‘What?’ Kipp said. ‘None of the royals ever visit Thezmarr.’

Thea was already making her way up the stone steps. ‘They do now, apparently.’

There were more guards inside the fortress, but no sign of the king or the Guild Master. It was Esyllt who Thea spotted on his way to the Great Hall, and she made a beeline for him.

‘What’s all this about, Sir?’ she asked when she caught up with him.

The weapons master looked older to her all of a sudden. He was thinner and new lines around his face made his demeanour even more stern. But oddly, his expression softened upon seeing her. Perhaps it had to do with her tending to his wound on the battlefield.

‘There is to be a feast tonight,’ he told her, glancing at Cal and Kipp, who fell into place behind her.